Turnout For The Asking

Who Is Helped By High Turnout?

In 2015, the Friday after the election I got a free ticket to a lunch at the Chateau Laurier. It was a Bob Chiarelli speech, if my memory is correct, and at the table was the President of the UOttawa Young Liberals, me, a fellow UOYL member, David McGuinty, Chandra Arya, Francois Drouin, and a couple others. We were seat fillers, essentially, and we got a free lunch. It was a win for us.

Drouin was the only of the three electeds at the table to engage in much real conversation, and he said something that’s stuck with me. We were chatting about the higher turnout, and he said he won’t be worried when it falls next time. “I’ll be worried when it rises again, cause it means they want to throw us out” was to my best memory the quote (and is certainly an honest paraphrase), and it seemed to hold in both 2019 and 2021, where the lack of turnout surge suggested there wasn’t a huge Throw The Bums Out energy against Trudeau. But now, we’re here, and somehow it’s changed.

The case for the Conservatives was always that they had a highly engaged base of people who hated Justin Trudeau that will remember all of the reasons that they hated Trudeau and his government even with a fresh coat of paint. It’s why the Poilievre campaign is spending so much time and effort trying to tie Trudeau to Carney, because they want voters to remember that they were poised to toss out the bums four months ago. The problem is, higher turnout complicates things.

The higher you crank turnout, the more likely you’re going to get voters who rarely if ever interact with the political process, many of whom were activated by the 51st State stuff and the tariff war. You’re, potentially even more importantly, going to get an electorate for whom Poilievre’s attacks are going to be even less useful. Take the argument that Poilievre’s making and made in the debates, that it’s the same team behind Carney. In a lot of ways that’s true, but you’re going to get a lot more people who read the paper daily or watch The National for whom that’s resonant than from your average infrequent voter.

We know from David Coletto’s work that most people couldn’t name most Cabinet Ministers, so the idea that attacking Carney for Sean Fraser running again or whoever won’t work. The average low information voter is likelier to think that the leader is all powerful, as we see often in the US when voters blame leaders for moronic shit. Seriously, you’ve never lived until you’ve met and listened to voters who unironically blamed Joe Biden for the repeal of Roe, it’s a treat.

The argument against this is the demographic data, which suggests the CPC are doing better with the young, and there’s some truth to it, but I don’t think by any means it’s a guarantee. In this week’s Leger poll, the Liberal vote share was 3% down with 18-34s compared to their overall. That’s similar to where they were in January’s Leger poll, where their vote was 2% lower with 18-34s than it was overall. For all of the talk about the levels here, in terms of the swing the Liberals have recovered pretty uniformly across the board. Angus Reid shows the same thing - they underran by 2% in December, 1% now. And that uniformity will include a lot of young voters.

The answer is simple - voters who have entered the electorate are likelier to be less informed and attentive to the Liberal failures. Anybody who has ever knocked on doors or done a vox pop knows that voters don’t always have hugely detailed opinions on things and get details wrong often. The lower you crank turnout, the more likely you’re going to get an electorate where “You still have Guilbeault [or whoever] in the cabinet, you’re the same old Liberals” works for you. For less engaged voters, they’re more likely to see this as a binary Poilievre/Carney battle, one where Carney wins.

Now, does proof of high turnout in advanced polling mean high turnout overall necessarily? No, there’s been a global trend of increased voting early without huge increases in overall turnout. Australia, where turnout is compulsory and therefore overall turnout rarely changes much, has been seeing a huge increase in pre-poll, what we would call early, votes over the last decade. But if we accept the premise that higher turnout is happening, I don’t think Conservatives should be happy.

Abacus’ Definite To Vote screen sees a 2% Liberal lead overall go to a CPC+1 result, Leger and Angus Reid both show higher levels of CPC voters being firm in their support, and there is a lot of noise about lots of vocal Conservative support on both the doors and on social media. But what is true is that voters who aren’t firm in their choice are breaking solidly Liberal. 30.1% of the country, per that Leger poll, is committed to voting Liberal and their vote won’t change, while 28.9% of the country is committed to voting CPC and their vote won’t change. That’s a small lead, but the rest of the 5% Liberal lead comes unsure or soft voters. 12.5% of the country leans Liberal, while only 8.75% lean Conservative.

Put another way, almost all of the Liberal lead in that poll comes from soft voters. It’s not a guarantee that those who are undecided or merely leaning are going to be infrequent voters, but let’s be real - if you’ve been paying attention to this shit for the last few years you’ve made your mind up long ago. Nothing that will happen now in the final two weeks will move the hardcore voters, but the Liberal advantage requires getting soft, infrequent voters out.

The Abacus post-debate data that suggested Carney did better the less of the debate viewers watched also helps this conclusion. People who watched some of the debate thought Carney won, a group that is less likely to have political junkies and certain voters. It’s helped by the fact Carney’s worst segment - his dogshit security clearance question - was at 8:45, but still. The casual voter is more enamored with Carney than those who pay more attention. Definitionally, higher turnout helps.

The Trump Effect has been in a lot of ways activating a Canadian pride that’s been dormant for a while, a pride that tapped into all facets of culture. The Four Nations Faceoff final - a fake tournament with no heritage, little build up, and no fundamental stakes - got more viewers in Canada than anything short of Game 7 of the Cup Final last year, in large part because of the tariff threats and the political instability. It’s also activated voters who haven’t bothered voting in a while but who seem to on the whole think Carney’s pretty okay.

Does the high early vote numbers mean anything for total turnout? Maybe not. But high turnout does help the Liberals here. If the electorate that voted in 2021 came out again I feel pretty confident the Liberals would lose. But infrequent voters activated by Trump are breaking for us, and Liberals should be happy with high turnout.